Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt to Play Capitol Center For The Arts, 1/18

Lyle Lovett & John Hiatt are set to perform an acoustic evening at The Capitol Center for the Arts on Saturday, January 18 , 2014 at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $34.50 and are available at the Capitol Center box office, located at 44 South Main Street, Concord, NH, via phone at 603-225-1111, and online at www.ccanh.com

A singer, composer and actor, Lyle Lovett has broadened the definition of American music in a career that spans 14 albums. Coupled with his gift for storytelling, the Texas-based musician fuses elements of country, swing, jazz, folk, gospel and blues in a convention-defying manner that breaks down barriers. Lovett has appeared in 13 feature films, and on stage and television. Among his many accolades, besides the four Grammy Awards, he was given the Americana Music Association's inaugural Trailblazer Award, and was recently named the Texas State Musician.

Garden & Gun recently called Lovett "one of America's most beloved singer/songwriters," and he was featured in the coveted "What I've Learned" column in the February 2012 issue of Esquire.

Lovett has been touring in support of Release Me since its release in February, 2012. The album was #1 for several weeks on the Americana charts. Produced by Nathaniel Kunkel and Lovett, Release Me represents the end of an era as it was his last record for Curb/Universal Music Group after being on the label for his entire career. Release Me is quintessential Lyle, mixing a smart collection of originals and songs written by some of his favorite songwriters that show not only the breadth of this Texas legend's deep talents, but also the diversity of his influences, making him one of the most infectious and fascinating musicians in popular music.

Since his self-titled debut in 1986, Lyle Lovett has evolved into one of music's most vibrant and iconic performers. His oeuvre, rich and eclectic, is one of the most beloved of any artist working today.

John Hiatt, who has been hailed by the Los Angeles Times as "one of rock's most astute singer-songwriters of the last 40 years," will release a Best Of compilation entitled Here To Stay - Best of 2000-2012 on November 11 on New West Records. The 17-track collection is comprised of key singles and live show favorites such as "Crossing Muddy Waters," "Master Of Disaster," "What Love Can Do," and "We're Alright Now". Hiatt, who has been on tour since June in support of the critically acclaimed album, Mystic Pinball, reunited with longtime friend Lyle Lovett last week for the aptly titled tour "An Acoustic Evening with Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt." The run, which began October 22 in Vermont, will take the pair across the East Coast, Midwest and Southwest before wrapping up on the West Coast.

The dawning of the new millennium coincided with a new chapter in the career of Hiatt, one of America's most respected and influential singer-songwriters. After a quarter century of releasing records on five different major labels, the Indiana-bred musician kicked off a now-13-year run as an independent artist, recording eight albums (an initial pair of albums with Vanguard before moving to New West, his label home for more than a decade). This collection captures two songs from each of those eight albums, ranging from the pastoral "Crossing Muddy Waters" from the self-produced Grammy nominated album of the same name to the flat-out basher "Everybody Went Low" recorded with his then backing band The Goners.

Hiatt's venerable and prolific New West years are duly represented here with tracks from each of his six releases, Beneath This Gruff Exterior, Master of Disaster, Same Old Man, The Open Road, Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns and last year's Mystic Pinball. Among the many highlights are "Master of Disaster," produced by iconic Southern producer Jim Dickinson and featuring his sons Luther and Cody Dickinson's band the North Mississippi All Stars, the lilting, redemptive "What Love Can Do" with daughter Lilly Hiatt providing beautiful harmonies and the front porch twang of "Blues Can't Even Find Me," from Mystic Pinball, produced by Kevin Shirley (Journey, Aerosmith, Black Crowes). Here to Stay concludes with the title song, a smoldering roadhouse blues number featuring slide guitar virtuoso Joe Bonamassa, originally recorded for Dirty Jeans and Mudslide Hymns. Why Hiatt chose to leave it off that record is unknown but it turned out to be a prescient move. The song and performance serve as a thematically and musically perfect coda to this captivating collection - a batch of songs and recordings as artful, affecting and poignant as any in the nearly four-decade career of this distinguished American roots musician.

Hiatt has long been a favorite songwriter amongst musicians and many of his songs have been recorded by artists as diverse as Bob Dylan, Bonnie Raitt ("Thing Called Love"), Buddy Guy, Emmylou Harris, Ronnie Milsap, Iggy Pop, the Neville Brothers, Rosanne Cash (the #1 country hit, "The Way We Make A Broken Heart"), the Jeff Healey Band ("Angel Eyes"), Willie Nelson, Steve Earle, Linda Ronstadt, and even the cartoon bear band of Disney's 2002 film, "The Country Bears." He earned a Grammy nomination for his album Crossing Muddy Waters, and shared a Grammy with B.B. King and Eric Clapton for their album Riding With The King, from which the title track was a Hiatt composition.

Hiatt was honored with his own star on Nashville's Walk of Fame and his legacy was even further cemented with the Americana Music Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting and his induction into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.